


The Opposite Of Life Is Music

by alicat54c



Series: Rogue Step [4]
Category: Supernatural, The Flash (Comics)
Genre: Anti-life equation, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 19:58:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7236361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alicat54c/pseuds/alicat54c
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You think I’m the one doing all this mischief?” The golden eyed man cackled, twisting Jame's face into a familiar expression of mirth. “No, chica, I definitely don’t have enough juice for this.”</p><p>...<br/>Epilogue of Piper and Trickster's adventures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Opposite Of Life Is Music

…

“I’m so bored!” James moaned, body flung across he couch like a hunted pelt.

“Me too.” Grunted the resident pyro.

“You both could do something constructive. Boomer did just finish setting up a firing range in the basement, and he even dismantled the traps so we can go down there too.” Sam said absently.

“Too much range, not enough fire.” Mick said, rising from the couch with a disturbingly fluid grace. He picked up his coat and gun and walked to the door. “I’m off to burn down the pine barrens. Don’t wait up for me.”

From the appropriated shop window sized mirror taking up the far wall, Sam watched his fellow Rogue go apprehensively. “He’s not serious is he?”

“Nope.”

“And…we’re ok with this?”

Trickster patted Sam on the mirror. “Hang out with us long enough for game night, and you find out Len likes it hot, and Mick is a leading lobbyist for prescribed burns in forests.”

“Oh…kay.”

Hartley chose that moment to walk into the kitchen area, scrolling through an article on his phone. Immediately, James flipped over the back of the couch and latched onto the musician’s arm. 

“Piper!” He cheered. “Come with me on a magical adventure!”

Green eyes looked over and blinked, before returning to his phone. “No.” 

The acrobat pouted for half a heart beat, before folding his friend over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. “Too late! By becoming my friend, you have already subjected yourself to my erstwhile whims!”

Cackling madly, Trickster barreled out of the window, flying shoes catching half a foot off the ground.

The mirror meta shuffled his hands in his pockets, just able to make out Piper’s exasperated sigh as the duo zoomed past. “Have fun you guys.” He waved vaguely at the empty window, before hunching his shoulders and vanishing out of the corner of the reflective frame.  
…

“So,” Piper groused as they walked through the city’s streets. “Where are you taking me this time?”

Trickster rubbed his knuckles over his sternum. “I dunno. I just need to be…somewhere not here.” He turned to leave with a flourish of his cape.

“James, wait!” Hartley grabbed his arm.

“Follow the Force, I must.” The Trickster intoned, dancing drunkenly through the streets of the city. He stopped rigidly beside a black monstrosity of a vehicle, a gleam in the back of his eye. His fingers twitched for the lock, which clicked open for him to slide inside.

“James, it’s not profitable to steal cars.”

“Oh, common Piper! Just slip inside!”

The musician pinched the space between his brows.

“Come o~on! It’s a 1976 Chevy Impala! These things don’t just roll off the line any more, my dearest Hart! Come caress this genuine foe leather with me!” His hands wriggled unappealingly across the back of the car’s seat.

The pinch increased in pressure, before Piper just threw up his hands. “Fine. Whatever. Scoot over, I’m driving.”

“He~ey!” the Trickster cried, but obligingly moved to shotgun at some insistent elbow prodding by his friend.

Hartley closed the door with a snap. 

“Now where are we going?” He meant to ask. However, the second the car door shut, the scenery outside flickered and shifted. They were still definitely in a city. Just. Not one Hartley had ever seen.

He gaped. “Where-“ 

“No, no. Talk like master Yoda, you must.” James chided.

Piper grit his teeth. “The fuck where are we?”

“The snark is strong with this one.” The Trickster crossed his arms over his chest sagely, brow furrowed to match his dramatic pose. He took a deep breath, eyes opening to gaze off into the horizon. “I have no idea.”

“James!” But the acrobat had already tumbled out of the passenger door, nudging it shut behind him.

Hartley scrambled to follow.

Behind them, a pair of giant brunettes rounded the corner, talking softly to one another. The shorter of the two eyed the brightly costumed pair with suspicion. 

James stuck out his tongue. “And what are you two knuckleheads looking at?”

The tall pair exchanged a communicative glance. However, before they could speak, the Trickster had already whisked away. “Come minion, we need supplies!” He crowed to his friend.

“If we’re being honest with ourselves, I’m more babysitter than minion.” Hartley said, resignedly falling into step.

“Potato tomato.” 

James ducked into a hardware store, and plucked a tool from a bin by the wall. “Hell~o beautiful!” He hefted the tool by it’s long handle, iron head sagging to the floor, nearly too heavy to lift. “I’ll call you Slammy!” He cooed to the sledge hammer.

Hartley rolled his eyes, and discreetly paid the confused cashier as the duo once again paraded down the street. James led them down a twisting alleyway, finally ending in a dead end.

The musician raised an eyebrow as his friend haphazardly scribbled something on the wall with chalk, before stepping back.

“James, what are you doing?”

“Just doing some magic, or at least he said it was something which I’m calling magic…”

“What?”

“Someone asked me for a favor. I’m just following through.”

Piper sighed exasperatedly. “James, what are you talking about?”

The Trickster blinked distractedly, refocusing on his friend. “Huh?” 

“The only people you talk to on a daily basis, who don’t run away screaming, I’m pretty sure don’t know about our little adventures beyond the basics.”

The blonde scratched his head. “I had a dream… it seemed important at the time.”

The ground rumbled. The Trickster’s scribbles glinted like sunlight off steel, before unfolding into a massive cave, with long stalactites hanging like bars. Soon, the rumbling faded, filling the alleyway with eerie silence.

The Trickster grinned. “And there’s our entrance!” He swung the sledge hammer over his shoulder with gusto. “Piper, give us a tune!”

Hartley sighed, too inured to the oddity of his own life to do much more, and began a pounding rhythm with a heavy down beat.

“Just like that!” James crowed, tapping the handle of the hammer against his neck, before swinging it against the stone wall in time to the music.

The stalactite wall, which had seemed thick as a mountain side, shattered easily, just at thick as a pane of glass. Beyond, a set of eyes and jaws loomed in the darkness. The owner of said parts rumbled. Hartley could feel the sound reverberate up his feet to rattle around his hind brain, before shivering back down his spine.

The Trickster giggled as the palm sized teeth sniffed close to his face. “Aw, who’s a cute puppy?”

“James, that’s a WOLF.”

“Oh, don’t be such a spoil sport Piper.” He smushed the beast’s monstrous head between his hands and shook it from side to side as he scratched its ears. “How can you say no to this face?”

“Easily, with lots of screaming, and possibly running in the opposite direction.”

“Well, if you’re so scared, why don’t you play something? Music soothes the savage beast, and all that.”

“James-“

Blue eyes winked. “Come on! Please?”

Apprehensively, the musician raised his instrument once again to his lips. The second the notes rolled through the air, the Trickster plucked at the chains binding the wolf’s neck to the stone walls. At his touch, they pulsed in time with the beat, before shattering into whiskery wisps of unbreakable impossibility.

The great wolf lumbered unsteadily to it’s feet, as if unsure whether it’s ability to stand was truly to be believed.

“Come on Fenny,” the Trickster crooned, running his hands over the beast’s shoulders. “Up-si-daisy!”

The canine, bolstered by the words, stood tall, taller than a house. It shook its shaggy pelt, shedding off millennia of dust and cobwebs. Fur flew in every direction, more fur than Piper felt even such a large beast could house. 

He squeezed his eyes shut, still playing his flute. When he opened them, in place of the house sized wolf, a tiny black husky looking puppy yipped. It licked at the Trickster’s hand, and ran out of the cave into the street, and vanished.

Hartley put down his flute. “James, what-“

A draconic hiss sputtered out of the cave’s mouth, cutting off his words.

“Oh no, don’t tell me they locked that in here too!” The Trickster huffed.

A beastly slithering thing, too eldric to merely be called a serpent, approached from the gloom of the cave. It opened its needle toothed maw, fire flaring in its depths. 

Hartley barely had time to open his mouth for a scream, when his friend held up a hand.

“Oh, can it, you limp noodle.” His fingers snapped. The beast writhed, sputtering hisses like a dying volcano, and abruptly vanished. James turned to Piper, eyes flashing gold. “Well, that could have been messy.”

The musician’s heart went cold. “You get out of him RIGHT NOW.”

The golden eyes flickered, and he clutched his chest with a wince. “Ouch. Geeze kid, it’s not like I’ve been possessing your friend this whole time. Chill!”

Piper’s vision swam. “Get out, or I’ll-“ He raised his flute to his lips.

“What, you’re gonna blast me while I’m wearing his body? Let’s see how well that goes.”

The instrument fell back to his side, as he glared at the intruder. “What do you want?”

“Nothing really. James here already let my foster wolf out of time out, so I’m good for now.”

“You’re the one who’s been making James go on all these weird adventures, aren’t you!”

“You think I’m the one doing all this mischief?” The golden eyed man cackled, twisting Jame's face into a familiar expression of mirth. “No, chica, I definitely don’t have enough juice for this. I was just nudging along what he wanted.”

“What?”

“I got a soft spot and wanted to keep a little bit of myself alive in the world, even if it was just my legacy.” The Trickster shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, I didn’t put much of myself into the feather I gave your friend. I’ll fade away in a minute.”

“No, the other thing. If you’re not doing this, then how did we get here, and that castle, and the skeleton place?”

White teeth flashed. “Oh. Well, that was all you.”

The musician’s face went pale. “What? But I’m not a meta!”

“Course not,” his companion agreed. “You got the anti-life equation in you.”

“What?”

“The anti-life equation is the opposite of creation, every parallel and perpendicular nook dearest Dad spoke together.” The golden eyed man shrugged nonchalantly. “Back home, we call it the Darkness, but it’s all the same thing.” 

His attention turned back to Hartley. “And you, my little dirge playing Piper Pie, or at least one of you somewhere, became the anti-life equation.”

Hartley took a step back. “I- What? What does that mean?”

“It means you’re the avatar of nothingness, but the kind of nothingness that sucks up even all the black holes. You can probably feel it now, yeah? Pushing at the edges of your mind? Don’t let it out, otherwise everything will end. Everything. So, congrats!”

Shaking fingers clutched at a pale face. “Oh god. But- What- I didn’t do-”

The Trickster waved his hand. “What does that matter? All of existence is apart of creation, and so the Darkness spans just as far. It doesn’t care whether this scrap of soul you call yourself made the choice or not. It’s gotten hold of the idea of you, and it won’t ever let go.”

Hartley arms wrapped tightly around his own chest. “What can I do?”

“Get married? Adopt a kid? I don’t know, what is it you humans do between being born and meeting Death?”

“But what about the darkness equation thing inside me?”

He scoffed. “Oh, well not even I can do anything about that.” At his audience’s wilting posture, he held out a placating hand. “But don’t sweat it, kid! Everyone’s got scary dark places inside them that they can’t help! It doesn’t say anything bad about you that yours is just a bid scarier and Darker.”

Hartley scrubbed at his eyes futilely. “But, I didn’t want- I can’t—“

The Trickster’s eyes softened into downey clouds of understanding. Reverently, he draped an arm, which felt so much warmer and heavier than it had any right to be, like a feather comforter, across the musician’s back. “No one ever wants these things, kid.”

Piper leaned into the embrace, shivering.

They sat there in silence for a long time, long enough for the Trickster’s posture to slump from relaxed to exhaustion, before fading away into the dreamy edges of mortal slumber.

James jolted to awareness with a snort. “SNAKE!” His eyes fluttered around the empty cavern, before alighting on his friend. “Hartley?” Immediately he flung both arms, light with simple human warmth, around his companion’s torso. “Piper-pie, who do I have to kill for making you cry? Where did the big snake go? Why are we sitting on the floor? Why am I craving a candy bar?”

The musician chuckled wetly, burrowing into the embrace. “…It doesn’t matter. Can we just go home now?”

“Sure, anything you want. But first I’m getting you some ice cream, that will cheer you up, right? Or maybe we could blow something up, that’s your favorite, right?”

A sharp elbow to the ribs. “No, that’s your favorite.”

“Oh. Well, can we do that anyway? I feel like a phenomenal cosmic power trapped in an itty bitty living space, and I really want some destruction.”

A laugh, less watery than before. “I completely understand how you feel.”  
…

**Author's Note:**

> …  
> A/N:
> 
> The boys just wanted another adventure together, and I wanted to see how spn was going. The Winchesters are probably very confused. Also, I’m so proud of myself for tying together comic and spn universe. It was a fun little idea. (Because the Darkness is totally the Anti-life equation.)


End file.
